If things go really well, we expect a full 100% roll-out within a few weeks. It may take a little longer if there are any surprises, but as Collis mentioned in our 2014 Roadmap, we’re committed to getting stronger in media markets and helping buyers find what they want faster. Video previews are obviously an important part of both of these.

We also have answers to the most common questions that came up with our beta testing group:

Why aren’t there any controls for volume, mute, scrubbing, etc?
Right now, the hover panel disappears as you try to move your mouse into it. If you can’t move your mouse into the hover panel, there’s no point putting any controls inside it. We could likely address the way the hover works in the future, but our beta testers were keen to see this version ship as soon as possible.

As an author, can I upload my own custom hover preview that’s scaled properly instead of just being squished by the browser?
There’s no plans at this stage, but we’re likely to optimise/transcode the previews for the smaller player size in the future.

The first hover video is really slow to load, can you make it go faster?
Maybe! The lag is there because we load in some extra Javascript for the player after you hover over a video thumbnail. There’s a few things we can try to improve performance over time.

Why don’t we have 1080p previews yet?
This was out of scope for this particular project, but we’d like to get there eventually — it’s obviously an important part of our goal to be stronger in media.

I briefly see the preview image for the previous video when I move to the next one in Safari, is that a bug?
Yes, we hope we can make that better, but we’re hitting the limits of what our current player library can do. This is the best set of compromises we can find right now. We don’t think it’s worth delaying the release any longer.

Can you show the preview image before the video?
Yes, we do, but you might not see it if you’re on a fast internet connection. We’ve prioritised playing the video as soon as possible.

Can you show the preview image longer before the video plays?
Maybe in a future version, but for now, we’ve prioritised playing the video as soon as possible.

There’s some weird cropping of the preview image, what’s up with that?
We’re looking into this. We’re hitting the limits of what’s possible with this video player library, but didn’t think this was a big enough issue to delay the release any longer.

Why haven’t you…?
The internet is hard Please don’t hesitate to ask questions or post suggestions for us to consider in a future version.

Congratulations on the implementation. Glad to have been part of the beta (y’all got any more of them badges?). Some thoughts:

“There’s some weird cropping of the preview image, what’s up with that?”

Most authors have always been uploading preview images with 590x300 dimensions (which isn’t 16:9 video aspect ratio). Reason is, before this new feature, the rollover preview window would squeeze 590x332 images (which are 16:9). With this new feature, the window is 16:9 (AS IT SHOULD), so preview images in the non-16:9, 590x300 dimensions will have black bars on top/bottom. So this doesn’t need dev fixing, it’s a matter of authors creating a new preview image.

“Can you show the preview image longer before the video plays?”

I’d like to vote against this… seems like it would be a global solution and that sounds awful for most motion graphics and stock footage. When this feature goes up 100%, it should be left up to each author making his preview video how to deal with this. That way an author can decide if he wants to put the preview image in the beginning or not, and for how long.

There’s some weird cropping of the preview image, what’s up with that?
We’re looking into this. We’re hitting the limits of what’s possible with this video player library, but didn’t think this was a big enough issue to delay the release any longer.

As sightsignal mentioned, it’s because different preview image resolution.
But, it maybe should looks less weird if default background is #333333, not #000000?

I just tried dorde’s idea of ”#333333” instead of pure black for the player background and IMO it improves visually.

dorde said
For me the preview images shows only for less than one second. Too short to see the image. Maybe minimal defined time, something like at least 2 seconds, is better idea?

But imagine you’re a busy buyer with a fast connection looking at stock footage, what’s the point of looking at 2 seconds of a still image of the video, when you could already be looking at the video. I know 2 seconds doesn’t sound like that much, but multiply it by browsing dozens or hundreds of videos to find the right one and then those 2 seconds matter. That’s why I think it’s better to leave it to each author, when creating the preview video, to decide to show the preview image or not (which also gives control on how long to display it).